The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories

by James D. Jenkins

  I would whirl around the room until Floriane finally returned to take her turn dancing.

  Around that time, my sister started taking classes with our mother. She was preparing a performance for school at the same time. When her teacher was busy, which was often the case, I would help her to practice her figures, to make her movements more wispy. Initially she had been rather awkward, heavy in her movements. Thanks to my good advice she had gradually improved into a remarkable ballerina, to the point that she had been offered one of the lead roles in the production. I was very proud of my twin, even if I would have liked more than anything to leap at her side, to blend our identical bodies in a choreography, joined in the classical music.

  She was so lovely in her pink leotard, with her loose black hair down to her waist, her bangs falling over her big, deep-brown eyes. I would have loved to make her whirl on a stage, take off in my turn with a gossamer agility before landing again after a long flight. But I was aware that all I would be able to see of Floriane’s performance would be her rehearsals with our mother in the dance studio, hidden behind the half-open door. On rare occasions, I would slip noiselessly in with them, hiding in the set decor. I was careful to be noticed by my sister, who didn’t like me to appear unexpectedly. She had explained to me on several occasions that, despite our bond, my intrusion could be inappropriate and that she hated it when I startled her. She retained a bitter memory of the remonstrances she had brought on herself in her younger years when our parents caught her talking to me. So I was careful to respect her rules as much as possible and not to upset her.

  After the performance, which enjoyed a certain success, Flo­riane came to visit me in the wardrobe less often at night, since, according to her, sleeping on the floor could hurt her back, which a dancer couldn’t afford. I had suggested joining her in her bed, which was big enough for two, but she had flatly refused. That bed, she had made clear, was her reserved space, and she didn’t have to share it. She had repeated to me that she was quite generous in offering me the wardrobe. I had gone back to shut myself up noiselessly in the darkness, to stir up the accumulated dust in the closet, which drew shapes like dead insects on the walls. On the floor, among the cushions, the toys were piled up. My sister would now store them here as she lost interest in them. Now almost a teenager, she no longer knew what to do with these objects. So I had to cohabitate with these baubles pell-mell in an already small space, where I endured the stoic looks of dozens of dolls reminding me cruelly of our shared past.

  And yet, Floriane would still sometimes show me kindness, especially when loneliness weighed heavy on her and she felt the need to confide in someone. She would join me in the wardrobe like before, clearing herself a space between the abandoned objects. Then she would apologize while her tears poured out, my hands fondly smoothing her silky hair. I knew she liked the tingling sensations I inspired in her when I embraced her, that she enjoyed the fleeting contact of my lips when they brushed her skin. It was the same for me, and I hated to go too long without those embraces, which were the only thing that had the power to move me. The rest of the time, I was plunged into an icy lethargy, which evoked in me the image of a dying man caught prisoner in a frozen river from which, despite his efforts, he is unable to escape.

  On our fourteenth birthday, Floriane gave me a birthday present for the first time. Touched, I opened the package, which was pierced with holes and on which she had written ‘For my only sister’. I understood the purpose of the apertures when I discovered the kitten inside, which made its way curiously out from its prison. My twin set up a bed for it in the wardrobe, whose door she left ajar. The feline ruffled its fur at my touch, refused to let me come near it. Floriane argued that it would get used to me quickly, that from then on I would have a faithful companion to distract me during the day while she attended her classes. Yet the animal was constantly terrified of me and would curl up under my sister’s bed every time I tried to pet it. It spent every night with her, nestled in the warm covers, purring. Bitterly, I would sometimes come out silently to watch them sleeping from my perch on the dressing table, while the kitten would half open its eyes suspiciously, on watch. After spying on them for a moment, I would return to my assigned space, where I would swing upside down on the rod, a stuffed animal in my arms. Sometimes I would catch myself laughing despite myself as I rocked. My fingers would then caress Olga’s torn ears, sink into the orifices formed by her missing eyes.

  I had had to beg Floriane to keep her from getting rid of this toy, of which I was especially fond, when she was re­doing her room. It all had a much too childish look to it, she had explained to me. So she had had it completely repainted and had gotten new furniture. Not to mention the posters she had stuck on the walls, depicting various stars. We would still dance sometimes, but she was distancing herself from ballet in favor of more current choreo­graphies, in which I found little aesthetic interest. Nonetheless, her reputation was growing, and she had even been hired by a modern dance troupe to participate in a prestigious show.

  Enviously I watched her perform the series of complicated movements with that grace that never left her. Yet her presentation lacked an ethereal lightness that I mastered much better than her, a lightness that I would have been honored to deploy before an audience, if I only had the opportunity. Alas, I remained in the shadows, contenting myself with helping my twin improve her movements. Swollen with pride, she would flaunt her body to me, that body that I considered perfect, simultaneously slender and solid, with discreet but sensual curves.

  In the dance troupe she met Hector, a dancer around ten years older than her. He had spotted my sister quickly and would practice with her for hours. Floriane would tell me in detail about their budding love, their outings in the city, their daring embraces. Obsessed by her passion, she didn’t seem to understand the pain it caused me, how I dreaded more each time to hear her secrets, which became increasingly explicit. I ended by closing myself up in the closet, where I threw myself against the walls. Furiously I would move the toys that were piled up there before hurling them against the walls. I would fall asleep a moment later, dizzy, with a great vertigo in my head that continuously sought to suck me up, to drag me into a permanent fog.

  After two years of going out, Floriane decided to move in with Hector into an apartment downtown. She fixed her moving date for May and excitedly shared the news with me. She didn’t seem to understand the coldness this announcement provoked in me, why I scowled before going to take refuge in the closet. From that moment on, I stopped obeying the rules she had always imposed on me, stopped returning to my hiding place every time she asked me to. On the contrary, I never missed a chance to disobey her, to startle her, especially at night when she struggled against insomnia. I would make a point of moving the objects in her room, as I’d often done with the toys in the wardrobe. I would switch her clothes and personal effects around, would take down one of the posters that decorated the walls, would hide insects I’d found in the wardrobe under her pillow. I also took a certain pleasure in tormenting the feline, which I would poke with hairpins.

  Sometimes, I would make my way through the darkened room, my favorite stuffed toy held out at arm’s length, and I would bring it close to Floriane’s face. Her features contorted, she would beg me to stop. I would then exhaust myself in entreaties, kneeling on the floor, hoping that my insistence could keep her from putting her plan into execution.

  During the days, distressed, I would hide the torn-out eyes of her old dolls, and she would cry out in terror when she discovered them. The only breaks I took were to dance among the boxes cluttering my twin’s room, perched on the piled cardboard boxes, which I tried to make topple over, my plush toy in my arms. Only Olga escaped this methodical carnage, which I was careful to carry out in our parents’ absence.

  Hidden in the half-open wardrobe, I would revel at seeing our father, still dressed in his veterinarian’s smock, looking with bewilderment at my si
ster, whose drawn features gave her face a pallid appearance. Out of his depth when faced with her anxiety, which was as sudden as it was inexplicable, he considered having her seen by a doctor. By his side, our mother, not quick to show her emotions, clenched her hands with their long, manicured nails. In order not to make things worse for herself, Floriane kept quiet about my misdeeds, for she didn’t wish to increase our parents’ worry, or, worse, raise concerns about her psychological balance.

  Unfortunately for me, her nerves more and more tense, she moved her departure date up by a week. She left me without even a goodbye, her cat in her arms, abandoning me to loneliness. Deprived of all point of reference, the days ran together, identical, bringing only their set of fears and echoes that writhed on the walls like the slow streaming of blood. In Floriane’s absence I wandered aimlessly in the room, which had been converted to a guest room, unused since her departure. I didn’t recognize anything of her in this impersonal space, except my faithful Olga, whom I had managed to hide while our parents redecorated the room. It was just the two of us in the closet, which had been cleared of the other toys that cluttered it, just the two of us to swing on the rod, like the sickly needles of a defective clock.

  I don’t know how many days, how many weeks, passed before my twin returned to the family home. I had lost all pleasure in dancing long ago and continuously swung from the bar, murmuring secrets to Olga. At every moment the atmosphere of the house seemed more oppressive. Floriane’s visit finally pulled me out of the torpor into which I had slid and awoke feelings in me that had been only partly swallowed up in oblivion.

  As soon as she arrived, my sister rushed to the wardrobe to beg me to forgive her, I who had always remained faithful to her. Through her tears, I understood that she excused my childish behavior, which after all was only the mark of my attachment and the expression of my grief at her betrayal. I felt the extent of her sadness when she explained to me how Hector had cheated on her, how naive she had been to trust him.

  When night fell, I slid into her bed as delicately as possible. This time, Floriane warmly invited me to sleep beside her. I inhaled her scent with delight, the smell of her bare neck, the dark strands scattered over it like the hair of Medusa. Then I placed my lips on hers in a long kiss. A feeling of rebirth spread through my breast at the same time as a sudden tingling sensation, while I continued to embrace her with a still unquenched desire. I felt her fitful breath, her wish to lose herself in our entanglement while our embraces continued. Around us the white sheets rose and fell, moved by a light breeze exhaled by invisible breaths. I saw one of them knotting around my sister’s neck as she tried to free herself from the fabric that was squeezing her throat. The bottom of the sheet twisted around her ankles, pressing them together to keep her from moving. Her body arched as the cloth strengthened its hold, constricting her rib cage. The bedcover increased its pressure on her neck. Floriane’s face grew more and more purple. My twin struggled, with disjointed movements. The sheets restrained her limbs once again. Then her muscles relaxed as she fell back on the bed, inert, her eyelids open. I finally moved away from her, admired her slender silhouette, her supple legs, perfect for dancing, her delicate arms, outstretched across the bed.

  I didn’t much care what our parents would think when they discovered Floriane’s frozen body in the morning. All I desired at present was to spend one peaceful day after another waltzing through the room with my twin, performing ever more dizzying aerial movements in tandem. When night fell, we would return together to the wardrobe, where we would hang upside down from our shared perch, our hands caressing the worn-out body of the sleeping plush toy. For all that mattered now was that we were finally together again.

  Translated from the French by James D. Jenkins

  Anders Fager

  Backstairs

  Sweden’s history of horror fiction dates back to Gothic tales and ghost stories published in the early 1800s. The first Gothic novel in Swedish was Hin Ondes Hus (1853) [The House of the Devil] by Aurora Ljungstedt (1821-­1908), who might be likened to a Swedish Sheridan Le Fanu. The writing of ghost stories and fantastic tales continued into the 20th century with writers like Selma Lagerlöf (1858-­1940), the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, and Sven Christer Swahn (1933-­2005). Sweden has a active modern-­day horror scene whose best-­known representative is John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of Let the Right One In (2004), and which also includes short story writer Kristoffer Leandoer and novelist Mats Strandberg. However, one of the most interesting Swedish horror writers of recent years is Anders Fager (b. 1964), who burst on the scene with his volume of Lovecraftian horror tales, Svenska kulter [Swedish Cults], in 2009. An expanded version, from which the following story is taken, appeared in 2011. Fager’s collections have been translated into French and Italian, but he has had limited exposure to date in English. ‘Backstairs’ (the title is a 19th-­century term for the servants’ staircase in wealthy families’ homes), is set in turn-­of-­the-­century Stockholm, where a doctor’s Freudian methods may be no match for the unspeakable horror that haunts a girl’s dreams. A note on the Swedish terms in the text: proper nouns ending in ‘–gatan’ are street names; ‘Stora Skuggan’ (literally ‘The Big Shadow’) is a historic Stockholm park dating to the 18th century, and ‘Fru’ and ‘Fröken’ are the Swedish equivalents of ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Miss’, respectively.

  Elvira Wallin walks down the staircase. The long, narrow staircase down to the cellar under the house on Upp­lands­gatan. Walks slowly. She’s dreaming. Knows she’s dream­ing, is wholly certain she’s dreaming, and she goes down the stairs. Down into the damp and darkness. While a wind plays at her petticoat. Even though it can’t be blowing in the cellar. But Elvira Wallin is dreaming, so crazy things can happen. Everyone knows that. For it is only in dreams that one walks down the stairs in only a corset, underwear, and petticoat. White chemise and bonnet. She should have stockings on. At the very least. After all she doesn’t want to run around completely undressed. Not even when she goes down into the damp and darkness. Down the long staircase into the cellar on Upplandsgatan. Down under the house. Near Tegnérs­lunden. Which mother built with father’s money.

  Dr. Lohrman asks about her father. The major who became a timber baron. Was he a good father? Was he kind? Loving? Did he have time for you? Dr. Lohrman is that kind of doctor. A nosy, inquisitive little man with thick glasses, frock coat, a high cravat, and a well-groomed, pointed beard. A doctor who asks and asks and who always comes back to her dream.

  ‘Do you dream the same dream every night?’

  ‘Yes. Almost.’

  ‘And have you dreamt the same dream for a long time?’

  ‘I don’t really know. A month or two.’

  Dr. Lohrman says that he can cure her of the dreams. If she answers his questions. But Elvira Wallin wants medicine. Chloroform or tincture of opium. She wants to avoid Dr. Lohrman’s questions. They’re too prying. And he asks her to describe the dream carefully. Goes on and on about it. He ‘wants to understand’, he says. For he can only cure her through talking.

  ‘What else do you dream about? Can you remember anything?’

  ‘I dreamt a lot about papa when he died. That he came back from Sundsvall. That it was someone else who died in that accident.’

  ‘Did you wish for that? That someone else had died in his place?’

  ‘Naturally. Then my father would still be alive.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Dr. Lohrman doesn’t say that she is selfish. Instead he keeps harping on about the dream.

  ‘But now you dream exactly the same thing every time?’

  ‘The past few weeks, yes. The same dream. Over and over again.’

  ‘Are you certain? It doesn’t change? It doesn’t develop? Doesn’t become worse or more frightening?’

  Elvira Wallin thinks about it. There’s a tickling at her belly. She thinks about walking
down the stairs. Always dressed like a slut. Always in the damp and darkness. Over and over again. Until she awakes soaked in sweat and screams. And screams. And screams.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says.

  It’s all a little peculiar, thinks Elvira Wallin. Talking with a doctor about a nightmare. She isn’t very old and doesn’t know anything about medicine. But a doctor who just talks? A person can’t talk with someone to make their dreams stop, or make them sleep better. If you can’t sleep, you drink some cognac, right? That’s what mother does sometimes. Or maybe an opiate. Elvira Wallin has read about opiates. Oriental medicines that make you dream. That let you ride the dragon. That sounds exciting. Maybe she could ride the dragon down the stairs and her dragon would kill everything down there. Kill that horrid thing that waits for her in the cellar. Night after night. In the damp and darkness.

  Elvira Wallin has lain down on Dr. Lohrman’s chaise longue. In his consulting room on Drottninggatan. Two stories up, next to K.L. Lundberg’s department store. The doctor has a nice place. And there’s a housekeeper somewhere back in a kitchen. That feels important. That Elvira isn’t alone with a man. Even if it’s in broad daylight. And he’s a doctor. Once a field surgeon in the guards. In father’s company. And warmly recommended by Fru Sandell. They’ve exchanged greetings. Elvira Wallin has taken off her hat and cloak. Said ‘no, thank you’ to tea. She has lain down on the chaise longue and tries to lie still. But it feels strange to be lying down when he is sitting. And it itches. On her neck and on her back. On her legs. Everywhere. And she can’t lie there on Dr. Lohrman’s chaise longue and scratch herself like some flea-­bitten dog. Elvira Wallin wonders. Is she hysterical, like Fru von Kantzow says? Or have her dreams simply settled into a bad habit? Like a cat chasing its tail. For in the dreams she’s always walking down the stairs. In petticoat, corset, and underwear. It is midnight and she dreams that she is awake and stepping out of bed. It is quiet and everyone is asleep and nothing can be heard from the street and she must walk up and down the stairs. Every night.